And there we are - the Surface Pro reviews are in. Readingthroughthemall, there's clearly a common theme, and it's not particularly positive. We're a few months in now, so I think we can finally call it: Windows 8 and Surface are the wrong way to go.

I'm guessing they'll have a Haswell version out by the end of this year, and then many of the issues with battery life (and possibly heat) will be reduced, and when Broadwell comes out it'll likely be competitive with the (current) iPad on battery life.

So, should they have waited yet another 6-9 months to release the surface pro? Maybe but I also doubt MS executives would have allowed that considering how badly PC sales have been lately. IMO, unless you know the experience is just abysmal ahead of time (which is often very difficult to know) I think the better strategy is to release and iterate.

The other problem is, nobody else is standing still, and everyone else will have these advances too. Microsoft doesn't have an exclusive right to Intel's power improvements (or those from ARM SoCs for that matter), so the hardware available at the time isn't always the biggest factor, and I think the real question is how well the Windows 8 software does in the market and if people are willing to accept it, and having more iterations also gives them more chances to fix the brokenness/stupidity of windows 8.

If they're smart, then they'll take that opportunity and the version of Surface with Haswell will be more mature and just better overall.